It hit the fan!

Well, what an exciting morning! We administered the ITLS written test. We thought we had prepared them to succeed. In the US, there is a significant fail rate for this test. Some of the questions are worded questionably. I had the task of grading the tests. Oh boy. EVERYONE failed. We were appalled. How could this happen? Well, it had nothing to do with the instruction. That much is obvious with General Dave and Paula on the scene. I’m just the basketball playing movie star! More on that later. So, it seems that the geniuses at ITLS translated the test, but screwed up everything. Words didn’t make it through and didn’t translate directly across. I would guess they didn’t have anyone with any medical training do the translating. It has now created chaos. The class erupts on every question as we are going over it. Once they say what the question SHOULD be, they all know the answer. We had prepared them to succeed. The folks at ITLS did not. At least we could get the test changed to the way it is supposed to be written for the next class. Dr. Tsang summed it up when he said ‘we should forget Chinese reasoning and just learn the ITLS way.’ That is probably exactly what ITLS wants to hear!

The greatest thing about this is how funny it looks when they all start shouting, everyone trying to be heard over everyone else. It is like nothing I have ever seen before. No one is mad, they just want to be heard. I wish there was a way for you to experience this, so I am going to try to get some video of this phenomenon for you! I can’t even call it organized chaos. It is just chaos. I love it! The Chinese culture is very fascinating. I can’t wait to have Jesse explain more!

So last night Paula and Jesse went for massages. They told us that it was $12 for a one hour foot massage and a one hour full body!! $6 an hour?? Paula said it was a pretty good massage too, so good that she and Jesse bought gold club cards for less than $100 and it gives them 8 more massages! I don’t know about a foot massage (seen Pulp Fiction??) or the gold card, but $6 for a 1 hour body massage sounds alright to me!

Ok, real quick on the basketball playing movie star thing. They had all been saying I am either a movie star or a basketball player since I’ve been here. Finally I asked what basketball player I remind them of. Of course it was a Houston Rocket since they have Yao Ming to watch. It is Shane Battier. Yes, he is now on the Grizzlies, but was on the Rockets for awhile. I can kind of understand it. He’s bald, or at least close to it. He has a goatee (I have grown one outside the clutches of AMR). He has strong facial features. But then he is black. Obviously I am not. But he is light skinned! It is still funny. I’ve always been just normal looking. I come here and I’m like sliced bread! I’ll take what I can get!

The banquet was amazing. All the warnings that we were given about drinking were true, but we were adults and it was no problem. No one got into any trouble or drunken shenanigans. It was simply a good time. One thing is clear, they absolutely love us here. Toasts abounded. There were several beer chugging incidents. Both Paula and I dominated. Thankfully we were able to end that real quick, and the rest of the night was sipping. General Dave even picked up a couple directors, and at one point even kissed them on the cheeks. Yes, men. They loved it. Towards the end of the night they all circled me at one point, wanting me to sing. I can’t subject them to that kind of torture, so we all broke into song. They were also having me say certain Mandarin phrases. Apparently I could say them really well, and after I said, or rather yelled them in the fashion of Dr. Meow (he yells everything) they would all break into applause. Paula was very well behaved, and didn’t get rowdy like General Dave and I. I’m sure a rowdy woman isn’t something they are used to here, so kudos to Paula for having the perfect mix of annihilating them in drinking competitions and being able to relax in her domination. Despite General Dave and I getting rowdy, it was never out of control, and our gracious hosts probably would have had us drinking lots more if they had had their way. We did have one more day of class, so we remained in control, but also let loose just enough to satisfy them. There are many pictures of this, and I will try to limit them on here, but please, if you want to see more of anything just drop me an email!